House of Cards

What's wrong with psychology? Dawes here gives us the definitive diagnosis. This is science writing at its best, and, in a field rife with pseudoscience and fraught with fallacious but popular claims, a much needed antidote. I am a psychologist, and as one, attest that this book gives an accurate assessment of the field. Rorschach tests are voodoo, in fact, most personality tests are. Hypnosis, one could add, is also a bunch of woo-woo nonsense. It's a parlor game, just like psychotherapy was. It's time that the lay population's views of psychology were updated, and Dawes, being the genius that he is, is just the man to do it.

Robin Dawes is a genius and one of the most original thinkers in any field. His work was a primary source for my own Ph.D. dissertation. Unfortunately, clinical psychology has morphed into a hodgepodge of political leftism and Oprah-style "feelings" that has barely any resemblance to science. Compounding all of this is the competition for money as (far too many) psych grads look for a way to earn a living. Completely normal human responses to everyday living are defined as pathological and needing "professional intervention." Meanwhile, criminal and evil behavior is also considered for "therapy" when, in fact, jail is the only reasonable "treatment" needed. Finally, political correctness pervades the whole, especially the care of children. So instead of getting the pot-smoking 30-year-old mother of 5 children by 5 different men to see that her behavior is hurting her kids, the kids are given labels (ADHD, ODD, Bipolar, etc.) and drugs, including antipsychotics, as early as age 2 years. Meanwhile, the therapy train steams right along...

Robyn Dawes, in the House of Cards, takes great pains to carefully document the most common and dangerous myths that underlie the fields of mental health treatment. The author's writings are firmly grounded in research, and the conceptual integrations are presented in a manner that is easy to understand for both the students of mental health related disciplines, consumers of mental health, and the seasoned mental health professional. In this book, Dawes models one of the central goals of college education; the value of critical analysis. Further, she sets the stage for mental health professionals to behave in a manner that is consistent with the research, and thus finally hold themselves accountable for the work they do with clients. A magnificent book with wide ranging implications for mental health professionals and their consumers. Pay attention, this book is the real truth about the approaches used to alleviate the suffering of clients of mental health professionals. Be accountable!!!

Robyn Dawes has critically examined a variety of commonly-held myths in clinical psychology. In doing so, he debunks these myths through citing strong research evidence that contradict their basic tenets. The field of clinical psychology largely seems guided by a variety of pop-culture notions (e.g. that self-esteem is a necessary precursor to every form of "psychological health") fundamentally based in Western ideologies of hedonism. Dawes reviews this myth, as well as several others (e.g. psychologists possess "special abilities" beyond those of minimally trained people, most who suffer from traumatic childhood events are destined to live a psychopathology-ridden life, etc.) and presents the accumulating evidence that goes against popular notions of psychology. This book is the book for the social scientist who feels that psychology should be the "science" of human behavior, as well as a gem of a read for those in the general public who want a more accurate impression of the field, including what it can and cannot offer.

In this very important book, Dawes affirms the power and effectiveness of psychotherapy, and the fact that your wise aunt is probably better at it than any certificate encrusted psychotherapist. But since your wise aunt doesn't charge you any fees, and has a vested interest in seeing that you get your psychological act together, it makes the psychotherapy industry a veritable house of cards. Dawes assembles an impressive amount of empirical evidence demonstrating that minimally trained paraprofessionals can generally make better psychotherapists than their over credentialed peers. His findings are important in more ways than one, since if psychotherapists are no more effective than an empathetic paraprofessional, then the counseling techniques they use don't actually give a great vote of confidence to the humanistic 'New Age' blather that mandates happiness at whatever cost to our ability to realisticallly perceive the world. But again, in this whiny, self indulgent world, why shouldn't psychologists have a lot in common with another group of much beloved professionals who specialize in making common sense hard: namely lawyers!Overall, Dawes doesn't offer much as an antidote to the rampant silliness that is modern psychology except for an appeal to common sense. A shame then that it took a book like this to reaffirm that common sense and a healthy skepticism are pretty good things to have, in spite of all those talking heads on TV who tell us otherwise!